Would also like to ask, along the same lines, do you need to store your organic beans in a seperate area from other bens (green) to be able to adverertise them as organic.
Or am I better off calling them "organically grown"

i have not purchased or roasted beans in over three years, but when i did the following was the case....

the roaster did not have to be certified as an organic roaster - nor did your organic green beans need to be kept in a location different from your non-organic beans...

further, your organic beans were not required to carry the stamp of approval from any of the several popular certification boards - or nay stamp of approval, for that matter. unfortunately, the organic bean certification process is a little muddy with different certification agencies vying for the final say. the green bean wholesalers i purchased from (the largest wholesaler in northern california) refused to deal with such certifications agencies because it was a very expensive proposition for the wholesaler given that in order to carry an agency's certification logo, the wholesaler was required to pay a fee based on the percentage (weight) of the organic coffee they sell. this fee, apparently, was used to help support organic farmers.

i exclusively purchased and roasted organic coffee - the bags that arrived were stamped "organic" and the information on the bill of lading clearly indicated that the product was organic. and i kept a clipboard holding all of the bills of lading next to my roaster for my customers' review.

i have not purchased or roasted beans in over three years, but when i did the following was the case....

the roaster did not have to be certified as an organic roaster - nor did your organic green beans need to be kept in a location different from your non-organic beans...

further, your organic beans were not required to carry the stamp of approval from any of the several popular certification boards......

Well a few things have changed since then. In October of 2003, food processors, including coffee roasters could no longer use the word "organic" on the label on the front of the package.
Yes, this goes for organic coffee. If it's Fair Trade or Fair Trade Organic, the front label can read Fair Trade (fill in the blank coffee name).

Our company got certified from OCIA last year. Here's the deal. The coffee has to be on a seperate pallet from regular coffee. If you're small, it has to at least be seperted by a sheet of cardboard. The coffee broker or coffee warehouses know this, or they should.

Yes, you have to store the organics seperate from regular (conventional) coffees. We have all of our coffees in the same room, but the organics are seperated by @ 3 feet on all sides. No problem.

We have to run our roaster for 5 minutes at 400+ degrees prior to roasting organics. We call that the "organic burn." Some roasters run the machine at @ 400 degrees+ for 15 minutes. I say "WTF?!?!"

We have seperate storage barrels and bins for organics, and specially marked, "organic only."

Basically from when the beans come into the back door and out after roasting, they never touch anything that wasn't designated "organic" or that wasn't cleaned prior to running organic coffee through.

Yes, it's a bit anal, but it becomes routine after a few weeks. No big deal.
Bob

"Well a few things have changed since then. In October of 2003, food processors, including coffee roasters could no longer use the word "organic" on the label on the front of the package. Yes, this goes for organic coffee."

if this is the case, it is ironic that it is more difficult to find a package of organic coffee without the word "organic" printed on the front label than it is is to find one without it. for example:

as a matter of fact, every organic packaged coffee in my local grocery store is clearly marked "organic" on the front label and, get this, so are the plexi-glass bins containg what they claim to be organic coffee! how do they get around this? thanksgiving coffee, for example, is huge in my area and so are certification boards - i would think that they would most certainly adhere to such requirements or, at the very least, been turned in by now...

as far as keeping the beans separate, that was never an issue for me in that organic was the only type of coffee i roasted - but good info nonetheless.

btw, how are your bags marked that contain organic green beans when they come from your distributor? how do these bags appear on your invoices and/or bill of lading? are they ever certified by ft or fto?

"Well a few things have changed since then. In October of 2003, food processors, including coffee roasters could no longer use the word "organic" on the label on the front of the package. Yes, this goes for organic coffee."

if this is the case, it is ironic that it is more difficult to find a package of organic coffee without the word "organic" printed on the front label than it is is to find one without it.

btw, how are your bags marked that contain organic green beans when they come from your distributor? how do these bags appear on your invoices and/or bill of lading? are they ever certified by ft or fto?

Oops, I failed to convey the point that I was trying to make. What I meant to say is that if the Roaster (me) is not certified by an agency like OCIA, then they can't have the word "organic" on the front label.
Believe me, Thanksgiving Coffee and Green Mountain were way ahead of the majority of roasters when it came to selling organic coffee and being in compliance with an agency's organic certification policy.I apologize for the mis-statement.
Basically it's this. If you don't see something on the bag, (typically on a back panel, but not necessarily), which indicates a roaster's certification number (i.e. OCIA no. 12345), then THAT roaster is likely selling organic coffee without the authority to do so.

And to answer the other question, all cert. organic coffee will list the name and cert. no. of the certifying agency, such as Forest-Trade in Indonesia and OCIA in many Latin American countries.
Hope that clears it up!
Bob

ps: A colleague of mine, out in your neck of the woods, Mark Inman if Taylor-Maid Farms is one of the industry's strongest proponants for roasting organics, as well as getting roasters to stop selling organics without certification. Hig-Quality coffees.

Whats up Bob!! See you finally found time to grace us with your presence :P do me a favor and PM your phone number again...Larraine and I moved and I lost your number in the move....I want to give you a call bout some cool stuff that is going to happen in the near future.
Topher